Between August 2008 and April 2018 I spent a number of years working on Signy Island (South Orkney Islands) and Bird Island (South Georgia) for the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). I worked as a Zoological Field Assistant on the penguin, seal and albatross long-term monitoring programme. After a 5 year break, i'll be heading back down to Bird Island in Janary 2024 for another dose of penguin work.

This blog gives readers an insight into my day-to-day life in the Antarctic, from my first trip south in 2008 to the present day.

Wednesday, 28 March 2018

The end of the season

With the ship only 2 days away, we are now all busy getting ready to leave.  Fieldwork is complete, boxes are packed and we start thinking about closing down the station itself.

The weather has been beautiful this week which has made a lovely end to a season that has been largely mild, wet and windy.  It has really felt like summer.

Yesterdays sunrise over Coronation Island was well worth going out to see.  Specially as the sun now gets up around 7:15am so it is not even an early start!   

The moon over Coronation in the evening was just as pretty.

The ship is due on Friday and we expect to leave sometime on Sunday, bound for the Falklands.  The Signy webcam will be decomissioned with the services so will vanish shortly, but you can follow my progress home on the Ernest Shackleton ship webcam and ship tracker (links to both of these are under the "interesting links" on the right hand side of this page, although the ship tracker isn't always very good at updating).  We will be onboard until 6th April. 

We fly home on 6th April, from the Falkland Islands, arriving back into the UK on 7th.  I am looking forward to getting home in time for spring.   

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